Game Design: Last Two Player Powers

Following my last post to introduce new powers, here are the last two player powers I devised to make the game playable. I’ll admit that of the powers I devised, these probably need the most work, but they still round out the normal complement of powers that create the closed system that is … the player’s turn.

Pretty complicated, isn’t it? This power has you put all the cards in your Exhaust, whether you put them there by drawing lot, by committing Resources, or they were exhausted through other powers. Recycle is the handy-dandy word we’re using to refer to “putting a card on the bottom of your deck,” or Destiny. Every time a card is put on the bottom, it’s “recycled.” And thus, we have the rule to end your turn.

Though they aren’t seen yet, there are a lot of powers that may trigger based on either recycling or ending one’s turn. A basic example that can be derived from Magic: the Gathering might be “target creature gets +3/+3 until end of turn.” In this case, “end of turn” refers to the turn of whichever player is currently active, and in this game might be phrased, “increase the value of target reserve by +3 until the end of the turn.”

The final power has undergone some pretty heavy modification since I originally wrote it, and might be one of the more internally complicated powers:

Intercession [Readied]
When a card is targeted, you may stake 1, 2, or 3 lot, and add the total value to the value of the targeted card. The targeting player may do the same with the targeting card. (If lot is staked, it is exiled instead of exhausted.)

The idea here is that you can prevent the loss of a card or cards by upping the stakes, but it’s difficult to say exactly what this power does for you. Other rules, like “draw lot,” “commit,” and “activation” all have meanings that aren’t described in the rules that use them, so what this power is waiting for is a new rule definition that I haven’t made yet.

“Draw lot,” for instance, implies that each participating player draws one or more cards, adds them up, and whomever has the highest valued draw wins the lot. In this case, the line “add the total value to the value of the targeted card” might be redundant. Or worse, it might not be specific enough.